When we caught up earlier today with the P.U.P. Deputy Leader, Julius Espat, he told us that the recall effort of U.D.P. Cayo Northeast area representative Elvin Penner is one step closer to becoming a reality for voters in that constituency. The opposition, he says, has garnered more than the prescribed number of signatures necessary to initiate a recall referendum. Those signatures were thoroughly vetted and have been submitted to the P.U.P. Secretariat after which it will be formally presented to Governor General Sir Colville Young later this week. The process, took time he said in order to ensure the validity of signatures. According to Deputy Party Leader Julius Espat, the executive of the People’s United Party will decide what will be done with the results of the petition before handing them over to the G.G. to continue the recall process.

Julius Espat

Julius Espat, Deputy Leader, P.U.P.

“Precisely today, we handed in from the constituency of Cayo Northeast all the vetted signatures along with all the signatures that we’ve collected up to now. So that is in the hands of the secretariat of the People’s United Party. We have collected over two thousand signatures; I don’t know the exact number but over two thousand signatures. Of those, the local committee along with the western caucus has vetted one thousand eight hundred and twenty. We now await the attorneys from the secretariat to just go through the last vetting to make sure that the others, we can put them in. so it is in the hands of the party now, the party’s executive. The Party Leader will call an executive meeting to inform the executive and then we will know the move to move forward. Most likely it will be maybe the end of this week or early next week that the members of the local executive from the northeast division will be taking these petitions—once the secretariat gives the go ahead—to the governor general and then the process starts.”

Isani Cayetano

“Have you guys begun the necessary ground work in the particular constituency once the referendum is to be called?”

Julius Espat

“Well the process took a little longer than everybody wanted it to take, but it was done for a reason. It is nearly two years after a general election, so we needed to bring together the players of that division; the main people, and that took some time to be able to garner them together and everything. And then we made sure that it was the local executive that did most of the bulk of the work. And that gives us the confidence that they know what they are going to face if it gets to the point of a bye-election. We are testing a system. We believe that the system was put in place specifically for it to fail and now we will make sure that we prove it either right or wrong. In our belief, the only way we will know if a law works, is if you test it and that is our responsibility as the loyal opposition to test it and that is precisely what we will do.”

In the Belize Rural North, there are also efforts underway for the recall of Edmund “Clear the Land” Castro. As in the case of Penner, immigration irregularities are cited as the reason of the recall. Interestingly, the U.D.P. has put forward a challenger to Castro in the person of Dwight Tillett, who is a former Castro Chairman. In the opposition, there are two contenders challenging current standard bearer, Attorney Arthur Saldivar.

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